Kenai, a Bernese Mountain Dog, started whimpering early one morning, waking her sleeping owners. Several people in the house were feeling nauseous when they woke due to unsafe levels of carbon monoxide. If not for Kenai. they might have died.

Loki, a service dog, was sent to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to do search and rescue. He also went to work after Hurricane Ike in Houston and a deadly explosion in Pueblo last November. He has helped reunite families and assist people in the worst of times.

Kenai and Loki were among Colorado's animal heroes honored last week by the Colorado Veterinary Medical Foundation. The annual program underscores the importance of the human-animal bond and the sometimes extraordinary contribution animals make to our lives.

Consider another of the honorees, Keifer, a black Labrador who visits patients every week at the Center for Dependency, Addiction and Rehabilitation at the University of Colorado Hospital. One of Keifer's fans had this to say about him: “Keifer brought me so much happiness in my darkest days. His visits were a wonderful respite from the drudgery of working through my disease. With a wag or a kiss, he showed me the beauty and simplicity of life that I had forgotten.”

Gina Kelble, age 8, helped Table Mountain Animal Shelter in Golden meet its goal of opening the new Foothills Animal Shelter. Gina raised money at her school by making daily announcements to her classmates asking them to donate, passing out flyers, and enlisting the help of student council members. They made donation bins and boxes to collect funds and goods. She even made a skit, which ran on the school’s morning television show.

And now, a word from my black Lab, Heemeyer: Bah!
According to a recent story on ABC News, black dogs in animal shelters are often overlooked by prospective pet owners. Animal rescue professionals have dubbed the problem the "black dog syndrome."
"What we've learned is that large black dogs, and also black cats, tend to be the last ones to get adopted from shelters," said Kim Saunders, the head of shelter outreach for Petfinder.com, a Web site often used by people looking to adopt pets.
"As a result, there are more of them in shelters and are euthanized more because of the lack of space," said Saunders, who says that one of the reasons she believes black dogs are overlooked is because they don't photograph as well as lighter-colored animals.
For some shelters, the problem is so bad that they've developed special promotions to help draw attention to their black canines, ABC reported.
Hope Hancock, the executive director of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Wake County in Raleigh, N.C., told ABC that her shelter offered a sort of blue plate special to help get their black dogs adopted.
As part of the campaign, Hancock said a poster was developed to promote the black dogs in the shelter and it was decorated with a string of blue lights. People who decided to take home the black dogs were given a discount off the routine adoption fees.
"Sometimes black dogs are seen as scarier by people," Hancock added. "It's very, very unfair – you can get a bite from a little yellow Chihuahua faster than one of the bigger black dogs."
Take it from Heemeyer, black dogs are just as loyal and affectionate as any other hue.

Travel and OutWest editor Kyle Wagner grew up in Pittsburgh and lived in Lake County, Ill., and Naples, Fla., before moving to Denver in 1993, where she reviewed restaurants for Westword before moving to The Denver Post in 2002. She considers the best days to be those that involve her teenage daughters and doing something outside, preferably mountain biking or whitewater rafting.

Dean Krakel is a photo editor (primarily sports) at The Denver Post. A native of Wyoming, he has authored three books, "Season of the Elk," "Downriver" and "Krakel's West." An avid kayaker, rafter, mountain biker, trail runner, telemark skier and backpacker, Dean's outdoor adventures have taken him around the world.

Douglas Brown was raised about 30 miles west of Philadelphia in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where he spent a lot of time running around in the woods and fields (where he hunted and explored), and in the ocean (where he surfed and stared at the horizon). Now he lives in Boulder and spends as much time hiking, running, skiing and boarding the High Country (and the Boulder foothills) as possible.

Ricardo Baca is the entertainment editor and pop music critic at The Denver Post, as well as the founder and executive editor of Reverb and the co-founder of The UMS. Happy days often involve at least one of these: whitewater rafting, snowshoeing, vintage Vespas, writing, camping, live music, road trips, snowboarding or four-wheeling.